Reality Check: Who should take statins?

Should you be taking statins? Research from Harvard University suggests "almost all" men over 60 and women over 75 should be doing so in order to help prevent heart attack and stroke.
But the Royal College of GPs has raised the alarm saying this could lead to some older people being prescribed the drug unnecessarily. Its chairwoman, Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard said: "It is not clear that every 60-year-old man or 75-year-old woman is going to benefit from statin therapy."
What are statins? Statins are a group of drugs designed to lower harmful cholesterol in the blood.... read more

Related news

The claim: The body representing developers says that they do not hoard land - they are building houses as quickly as they can.
Reality Check verdict: There is currently a large gap between how many planning permissions are granted and how many houses...

The claim: There are more bed spaces available for vulnerable women fleeing domestic abuse than there were in 2010.
Reality Check verdict: This is true - there are more bed spaces in refuges. But there are fewer refuges and more or less the same...

The claim: Foreign workers take away jobs from British workers and reduce their wages.
Reality Check verdict: Non-UK workers have no effect on the employment of UK-born workers, except during an economic downturn. Foreign workers may affect pay,...

One of Ireland's most senior Catholic clerics has called for the Church to take a "reality check" following the country's overwhelming vote in favour of same-sex marriage.
The first gay marriages are now likely to take place in the early...

The claim: Firefighter numbers in England are down 11,000 since 2010 and fire deaths rose 20% last year.
Reality Check verdict: Jeremy Corbyn is right to say that deaths have risen by 20% if you take the figures for the 12 months to June 2017, which...